I feel bad writing that because I like facebook. But I use it less and less in favor of messenger, just because I see less and less about my friends in my news feed.
Now their other acquisitions instagram and whatsapp seem pretty healthy, and VR is the future, so I wouldn't worry about the company as a whole.
I've never understood the pseudo-ephemerality of instagram. Even if you save stuff, or like it, the interface makes it very difficult to recall stuff from more than a few days ago.
Hypothesis: these businesses all monetize # of interactions (even if CPI is low), which they want to maximize by structuring interactions such that there is constantly new content that encourages obsessive checking. A sense of ephemerality of content reinforces that behavior ("I have to check because there is new content and it may be gone if I wait to check").
If anything I wish they would give an option in the settings to make it chronological
Unfortunately they're not measuring abandonment or annoyance. Metrics like these are the short-term gain investors of today tech, always looking into the today and ruining the tomorrow.
Why? It's a terrible company and Zuckerburg is kind of a jerk.
I have no data to substantiate but I doubt if it is true. May be in first world but coming from India, I believe there is still a huge market for Facebook. Internet literally means WhatsApp and Facebook to masses who are now getting affordable mobile phone and data connectivity.
Um, no. Facebook remains the most popular app in the United States with a comfortable lead. It's surpassed only by its own Whatsapp and Messenger globally. I think I read that in terms of time spent in an app, Facebook still beats Whatsapp, but I can't find the stat right now. Facebook just crossed 2 billion MAUs this year.
Its advertising revenue grows at close to 50% a year. Obviously part of that is showing more ads per user, but it's also growth in app usage. I'd say the cow keeps sprouting new udders and they are feverishly trying to keep up with attaching the pumps.
Perhaps more generally: money ruins everything.
According to multiple lines of argument, the value of a network for users scales like O(n log(n)) where n is the number of users. The log(n) factor is sufficiently small that a new and better platform can get traction if the user experience on the most popular one degrades enough.
Now this has actually been happening, but Facebook has learned from what happened to Friendster and then MySpace and has been buying up potential competitors such as Instagram and Whatsapp. However it is just a question of time until a successful competitor doesn't sell..then manages to take Facebook's crown from it.
This probably won't happen within 5 years. I'd give it even odds in 10. But I wouldn't bet on Facebook remaining king for 20.
See http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/metcalfe.pdf for some of the lines of evidence leading to that scaling conclusion.
Keeping up-to-date with multiple people using FB is like trying to watch multiple shows in short snippets concurrently mixed together. When you could just wait a bit and then watch it all as a contiguous story or have a real meaningful conversation with a person to catch up over dinner or something.
The little snippets people share on FB probably are also less personal, imo. It's stuff they're announcing to everyone instead of sharing with you or a small group.
It just doesn't feel like actually "keeping in touch" to me. Feels more like promoted content (from the people and the actual ads).
I have some friends who live too far away to visit that I do set some time aside to have an occasional video chat with.
I will point out that the parent seems to be referring to the posts that people make to no specific recipient. That is not keeping contact with your friends, this is watching your friend make an appearance on TV, so to speak. Admittedly neat the first time you see it, but the novelty quickly fades when they are "on TV" every day.
Yes, Facebook Messenger and Groups do actually provide a decent service for keeping contact with friends around the world. You can absolutely use Facebook in that way, but, from the perspective of business longevity and health, does it really provide more than similar services that do the same?
Personally, I'm not sure the network effects are as strong when talking about friends keeping in contact with each other. If I want to check in with a close friend who lives abroad, it is not a huge barrier to ask for their phone number or email address. And chances are I already have that information.
The one value proposition that Facebook does have, in my option, is that it is the internet's "telephone book". For acquaintances that you want to contact and have to look them up to find them, it is a pretty good bet that you will find them on Facebook. But there is also plenty of competition here as well, such as Linkedin, which seems to embrace the "telephone book" concept even more so than Facebook.
Mostly one to one, meaning more time investment if you want to reach a bunch of people with some news. Or maybe a mailing list you'd have to manage (which can be quite a chore thanks to spam). Dependency on high/reliable bandwidth for the video-char route. Again, utility to one might not equal utility to others. Some people have less free time to do everything in the way you or wybiral might, or maybe they just have different preferences. Maybe they actually enjoy seeing two of their friends who would otherwise never meet discover a common interest, or maybe even have a good argument, in the comment thread for something they posted. Maybe they're perfectly happy with "short snippets concurrently mixed together" and would derive less utility from your alternatives. It's awfully judgmental, and even a bit privileged, to assume that you're doing social life right and they're doing it wrong.
There is no right and wrong, but the fact remains that watching a carefully curated TV program featuring your friend is not keeping contact with your friend. It is watching your friend play a role on TV.
Hey, if that makes you happy, I'm not here to judge. It makes no difference to me if someone likes watching TV and is able to feel a connection to the players shown. But I think for most people the novelty of seeing their friend on TV starts to wane over time. I think for most people friendship requires mutual reciprocation and involvement, not glimpses of the person appearing on their TV each night.
Maybe I'm way off base, but from a business perspective, it seems Facebook has to maintain its attractiveness in spaces where competition is already high, and where there is little barrier for users to switch to on a whim. The network effects that have allowed Facebook to become what it is do not seem to be there long-term.
To me FB just seems like an extra dose of that unnecessary smalltalk mixed with self-promotion with the only real benefit being basically an address book.
These days I can arrange to hook up with an old colleague through Facebook because of Facebook and via Facebook and know exactly where s/he is in terms of work/relationships/kids, without the social pressure to spout the traditional cliches.
Not sure who made that product decision but it was lethal for me.